I Can Only Cultivate In A Game

"We merged with filth and became filth ourselves... is this the legacy we wish to pass on to the next generation?" She questioned them with a tone of deep rooted morality.

The Bai elders hesitated and then one of them stepped forward and bowed toward the crowd.

It wasn't a deep bow but was enough.

"The Bai no longer stand with the Qin," Bai Yao stated.

"We are done," Bai Xin added with a clear voice, "being chained to your deeds! We annexed out of desperation—not to enslave our people or destroy this town!"

Another Bai elder—Bai Peng—stepped beside her. "We stand with Lingyun Town."

The temple of politics that had chewed this town fell in on itself with a groan.

Qin Han tried to rally. "Treason—"

"Treason," Bai Xue said softly, "was selling our people for coin."

The Qin disciples who had followed orders out of habit took one look at the crowd and re-evaluated the wages of loyalty. Swords lowered. A few clattered to the stone.

Qin Yao came back through the hole his body had made with his hair in disarray as the bronze glow still clinging to his skin.

He looked at Tarkos, then at the people beyond the gate, and for the first time his gaze flickered. He was a man of the old school; he understood numbers. He understood timing. He understood when the river had changed banks.

He did not retreat.

"Uprising," he voiced with an almost conversational tone. "Very well."

He stepped once and the tiles screamed. The weight of him hit, and half the front rank of would-be revolutionaries bent involuntarily as his aura swept out.

Bai Xue took one step forward with the fan in her grasp snapping open as seal slips flashed at her fingertips.

She waved it once and a part of the oppressive aura was immediately sliced through.

Victor pushed himself onto one knee, spat blood, and stood. His ribs felt like a badly stacked shelf, but his legs still worked.

His qi was a bowl scraped clean, but there was always one scrap left if you chased it around with your thumb.

"Stay down," Tarkos said without looking at him.

Victor grinned despite the taste of iron. "He'll think I'm polite."

Tarkos made a noise that might have been a laugh.

Qin Yao raised both hands.

The palm energy bloomed, bigger than before, spreading through the surroundings. It would crush. It would pin. It would set the world's weight against anything that wasn't him.

Tarkos walked through it as if through smoke. The tattoos across his body split into shapes that weren't anything human, and the pressure parted for him like water around a blade.

He hit Qin Yao in the chest with the heel of his hand. The sound that made was the opposite of the one his Unmoving Body had made earlier. It sounded… hollowing.

Qin Yao's glow guttered. The elder flew again, farther this time, and didn't come straight back.

The other Qin elders took that moment to remember they had a combined technique.

The immediately tried to activate the binding Seal again.

Light like chains clattered and reached for Tarkos. His head turned a fraction as if listening to music nobody else heard.

He took a step, and the chains passed through where he wasn't. He flicked his finger casually and Qin Han's seal plate shattered.

Another flick, and Qin Mu's seal bled light and went dark.

Victor did not waste the breath, he sped forward with the last bit of his energy and swung his sword out.

Sweeehhh~

With a single cleave, Elder Qin Han's head was lopped off but he didn't stop there.

[ Wind Dash Has Been Activated ]

His body blurred once more as a burst of wind swept out from his earlier position and he appeared right behind another Qin Elder.

He thrust his blade forward with the last bit of his qi, impaling the Qin Mu from behind.

The next Shadow Cresent attack, took out two elders at once, painting the scenery with fresh blood.

In just a few seconds, almost all the Qin elders were down.

The crowd cheered while the last few Qin Elders fell on their backs and knees in surrender, begging and pleading for their lives.

Qin Yao's shadow fell over the hole again.

He stepped through with his hair unbound as his glow guttered and flared. He was bleeding now from a thin line from the mouth.

He lifted his hands, trying to unleash a cultivation Technique but Tarkos appesred before him and put him on his back with a flat efficient strike that would have taken a lesser man's heart out through his spine.

Cracks spread through his Unmoving Body causing the bronze to slowly shatter.

"This is not done," he voiced and spat blood at his own boot rather than give anyone the satisfaction of seeing it on the stone. But when he stood, he did it without raising his hands.

"I would rather die than give in to..."

"Say no more," Tarkos appeared in front of Qin Yao before he could complete his sentence.

Puchhiii~

A loud stone shattering, accompanied with flesh ripping sound rang out in the next instant.

Qin Yao eyes widened as he slowly looked down only to find a hole in his chest.

"Uh?" The old man's eyes wandered towards the person before him and he could spot a slowly beating heart in the grasp of his palm.

"Youu... Youu..." he watched Tarkos squeeze his heart casually, causing it to burst in a splash of blood.

His eyes slowly dimmed as words failed to leave his lips as he fell backwards.

Victor stepped forward while breathing hard with his sword pointed upwards. "Lingyun Town," he called with a loud, strong and commanding tone, "is free."

The people of Lingyun in the surroundings immediately cheered in tears andd laughter.

A hand touched Victor's shoulder. He turned.

Bai Ting Ting stood there, face damp with tears she'd hidden for too long. Chen Wu and his father were beside her, alive, safe. Chen Wu nodded once, silently. Victor returned the nod. No words needed.

He sheathed his sword and exhaled, feeling both exhausted and relief as the adrenaline that had fueled him this whole time slowly faded.

Tarkos clapped him on the back. "Not bad, hero. Drink later?"

Victor eyed the shattered estate as flames licked the corners. The people were busy reclaiming something that had been stolen from them.

"Definitely," he voiced with a smirk. "But first—let's finish dismantling this rotten house."

Smoke bled into the evening sky as the last of the Qin banners were torn down from the shattered parapets.

Bodies lined the pathways: some unconscious, some groaning, some dead. Qin disciples knelt with their hands bound behind them.

Bai disciples, those who chose to stand with the people, bowed to the townsfolk with shamed faces and trembling hands.

Others of their family, elders and lackeys who had sided with the tyranny and refused to repent were herded toward makeshift cells or simply banished outright after being crippled.

Victor stood in the center of it all with his swoed sheathed as his chest rose and fell.

This was the first time he had expended his qi reserves to this extent so it was taking longer to recover.

His limbs shook but he kept his back straight. The people were watching.

"Fang Chen!"

He turned to see Chen Wen stumbling forward with his father, Chen Guang, limping while leaning on a carved stick.

They both dropped to their knees.

"No—don't," Victor muttered while reaching down to pull them up. Chen Guang clasped Victor's hands with his wrinkled eyes wet.

"You saved my boy. You saved our home," although he had thanked Victor for saving them from the mines, now he was even more grateful because he would get Lingyun's Rest back.

"Don't mention," Victor muttered.

Liu Shen, the once-dignified manager of the Lingyun Trade Pavilion, arrived next.

He bowed so low his forehead touched cracked stone. "My shop was a prison under their 'custodianship.' You gave it back."

Around them, more people gathered: blacksmiths with soot in their eyebrows, mothers clutching children, old cultivators with walking sticks, young ones with eyes full of fire. They surrounded him like a tide with their voices overlapping:

"Thank you!"

"He's the one who freed us!"

"Fang Chen! Fang Chen!"

Victor exhaled as the roar of their gratitude brushed his skin like heat from a forge.

Notifications of liight scrolled across his vision at this moment.

[ DING! ]

[ Regional Quest Complete: "Reclaim Lingyun Town" ]

[ Sub-Objectives:

— Expose the annexed family's corruption ✓

— Liberate enslaved townsfolk ✓

— Topple the Qin's domination ✓

— Restore balance to Lingyun's economy ✓ ]

[ Rewards Granted:

400,000 Wisps of Qi

2 Gold-Grade Treasure Chests

1 Silvee-Grade Technique Scroll (Random)

Bloodline Integration +2%

New Qi Art Unlocked: "Void Severing Thread"

Reputation with Lingyun Town: MAX (Exalted/Peak)

Title Earned: "Savior of Lingyun" ]

[ Hidden Achievement: "Topple a Clan Without a Clan" ✓ ]

[ Reward: "Fang's Banner" (Unique Insignia – boosts allied morale and qi recovery in a 100 ft radius) ]

He skimmed through, barely absorbing, as more flashed:

[ Fame Spread: "Whispers of the Void Swordsman" now known in adjacent regions. ]

He blinked the windows aside. He had been in game for quite some time, he had to return to the real world.

Tarkos leaned against a ruined pillar with his arms folded, watching the crowd with a lopsided grin. "Congratulations," he muttered. "You just became a holiday."

Victor glanced at him. "What?"

"Listen."

A murmur in the surroundings swelled, unified and coalesced into a chant that rolled like thunder.

"Let us call today, Fang Chen Day!" someone shouted from the back. "The day we got our town back!"